TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 115 fill, but said that we should first settle with his father. We were asked if what we had laid before them was intended merely as service (as they call it), meaning thereby a present or douceur, or as all we intended to give him ; and we answered that we intended it as the full amount of present. To which they replied, they were only directed to receive service, that was then shewn, and objected to, as too small.

After much conversation on both sides, without being able to arrange with those fellows, we determined on again going to Almamy, to endeavour to settle with him personally. In this, however, we were deceived ; he was, if possible, more difficult to please than his ministers, and told us, that as we did not choose to act in compliance with their wishes, he should not wait where he was any longer, but return to his house, where we might come to see him when we thought proper to act consistently with, what he considered, our duty, namely, the increasing of the present ; that as all the surrounding kings were averse to our going to the east, and even his own chiefs did not like it, he was taking a great responsibility on himself in allowing us to do so. This, and much more of the same nature, too tedious to mention, closed the interview. We therefore, to avoid more dci